I missed Pinto and Vazquez being sent down last time. Richard Lewis, Geovany Soto, Michael Fontento, John Koronka, Russ Rohlicek also have bent sent down, while Danny Klassen, Peter Bergeron, Jimmy Anderson and Eddie Oropesa are NRI’s no longer, being sent to minor league camp.

Kinda surprised Pinto isn’t been considered for the replacement starter spots, veteran bias or not. Can’t find his spring stats, but I figure the answers might be in there. Anderson and Koronka might get cycles back when the second lefty plans fail.

Carlos Vasquez actually got out righted off the 40 man roster, passed thru waivers. That creates an open spot (without moving Kelton) which will probably be be filled with Chad Fox and/or Scott Williamson.

We’re down to 38 players for 25 spots. You can split them up into three groups.

It seems like we’ll have Joe close, Dempster spot start, and Rusch as the second lefty. Which means my guess of Ohman making the roster is probably wrong – I just don’t know who’s taking his spot. Probably an extra guy out of the pen. They might have been thinking Hansen before he got got hurt. Might be Kelton just because they have no ideas.

Bruce Levine (ESPN1000) said the Cubs are still working on a deal for A-Ram in the 4 years/$40-$45mil range.

I think I’m going to track the Iowa roster, but we’ve got to get that far first.

Updating while watching the game. Bob and Len sound okay, but they’re still far away from sounding like My Guys. It may take a while to get there. I keep waiting for Brenley to make a dumb managing move and it working out anyway.

I noticed Hollandsworth has incentives, but can’t out the specifics. I’ve got it on my spread sheet but I’ll wait to post it till there’s an update

Cut downs were made Saturday (reported everywhere so I’ll go with bcb). Mostly, it was all the minor NRIs being reassigned to minor league camp. The only exception was Jermaine Van Buren, (aka Joe v2.0).

Also sent down were the two pitchers they picked up in the trades, Roberto Novoa and Dave Crouthers. You kinda worry they might have not gotten much if those guys are the first guys out of the major league camp, but then again they might just want longer looks at them then some of the guys they’ve had around for a while. They still do have about a billion pitchers with the big club, so the innings have to be running a bit thin.

Chad Fox is the most talked about NRI at the moment. If he made it, they’d need a 40 man spot (Kelton?) and he’d take Leicester’s spot with the Cubs (because he’s got options.)

They don’t seem happy with any of the second left handed options out of the pen.

tCR prays they’re readying Hairston to take Macias’ spot. I’m guessing that’s the only way Kelton sticks; the bench hits a little better for it. (You lose Jose’s switch hitting, but does it really matter if you switch hit if you don’t actually hit?) Life would be so much better for Dave is he only got the hang of 3B himself.

Hendry just put over Ronny Cedeno and Angle Guzman. And another Chad Fox mention.